Para-cycling champ Colin Lynch crowdfunding £8k prosthetic leg for Rio 2016 (+ video)

Two-time Para-cycling world champion and occasional road.cc blogger Colin Lynch is seeking £8,000 in funding through Indiegogo – to pay for a new prosthetic leg to enable him to compete at next year’s Paralympic Games in Rio.

In his post on the crowdfunding website, Lynch, who rides for Ireland and is based in Cheshire, doing his track training at the National Cycling Centre in Manchester, says:

This may seem like an odd thing to be raising money for. I am a below-knee amputee and have been a Paralympic Cyclist since 2010. In that period I have won a lot of medals including the World Championships twice.

I went to the London 2012 Paralympic Games and to be honest - I was outclassed. I had hoped for a medal but was always just off the podium. The equipment I used was already out of date and since then it has continued to decline. The leg I currently use for training does not fit well and causes me a lot of pain, making training difficult.

Since then the problems have continued, but with limited funds at my disposal, I have had to invest in training and bikes rather than a new cycling leg. But if I want to get to Rio 2016 and actually be competitive there, I need to invest in a new leg.

So I'm going public with my appeal. I would love the help and support of ANYONE that wants to help me win. You get me the new leg - I will do the rest!

While all donations are welcome, there are some one-off rewards for those pledging specific amounts - £500 gets you a signed world championship jersey from Lynch, and £600 a Garmin-Sharp jersey from Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Lombardia winner, Dan Martin.

Meanwhile, for £750 you can hear a motivational talk from Lynch and have a bike ride with him, with five places available.

Currently Lynch has raised a little over £500 towards his target, and you can find his campaign here.

This film posted by Lynch to YouTube gives highlights of his cycling career, and he also has a blog here.